Dwell is one of my favorite words. It sounds a little old-fashioned, or maybe like a word from a fairy tale, conjuring a hidden home in the woods. In the Bible, it’s repeated all the way through from dwelling in tents to sparrows dwelling near the altar to Christ dwelling in the world
Do you know about the Merlin app? If not, I have a wonderful tip for you. Merlin is a free global bird guide for birds in the US, Canada, and Europe, the perfect companion for summer travels as well as staycations. I learned about it this spring from my friend Barbara, a seasoned naturalist.
In our Praying the Psalms class on Sunday mornings, we have discussed two of the images often depicted in the Psalms – the pit and the wings. The pit is the place in which people are put to render them null and void. It is the place where we are reduced to powerlessness. It is
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the word flourish. This morning, I finished up a stool I made with a scrap of cyprus, the last bit of several thick planks I retrieved from my friend Robert’s shop on South Main before he sold it to a developer and moved to Franklin. The board was pretty
These words, attributed to Albert Camus, the Algerian-born French philosopher, author, journalist, and recipient of the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, have seen me through many a ‘harsh winter.’
I first read them on a small scroll hanging in a bookstore, and since the scroll was for sale, I bought it and nailed it on
Hanging in my office is an icon of Mary Magdelene holding a red egg. I love it. Partly because for years my mom participated in an annual icon-writing workshop at Holy Communion, and this icon is a gift from that class. Also, Mary
Here’s a story told by Wendell Berry in an essay called “The Burden of the Gospels”:
In 1569 in Holland, a Mennonite named Dirk Willems, under capital sentence as a heretic, was fleeing from arrest, pursued by a ‘thief-catcher.’ As they ran across a frozen body of water, the thief-catcher broke
by the Rev. Paul McLain
We are hurting, angry, and reeling from the senseless shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, resulting in the deaths of 3 children and 3 adults, as well as the life of the shooter. We were already reeling from the deaths of 26 people in the storms and tornados in our region over the weekend that
In the midst of enjoying the return of Waffle Shop favorites like fish pudding and Boston Cream pie and listening to the amazing line-up of preachers for the 100th anniversary of Calvary’s Lenten Preaching Series, Lent is also a good time to read a new book or revisit an old one. The best books
‘Who are you, God, and who am I?
-Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
Frederick Buechner defines the ancient church season of Lent this way:
“In many cultures, there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year’s income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing